Asa Gray's suggestion that variation was directed by a higher power and Herschel's view of providential arrangement in nature.

+

Compares variation in domestic and wild species.

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Asks CL for introductions for his son William in Southampton, where he has joined a bank.

Transcription

2. Hesketh Crescent. Torquay

Thursday

My dear Lyell

Emma has gone a little tour with Etty, but I have forwarded
Lady Lyell's letter with the sad account of Mrs.
Longfellow.— I am sorry to have troubled you, but
shd. be much obliged for Dutch Translat. to be left
at Q. Anne St.— I am surprised at a
Dutch Translation—

I declare that you read the Reviews on the Origin more carefully than I do.—
I agree with all your remarks.— The point of correlation struck me as well
put, & on varieties growing together; but I have already begun to put
things in train for information on this latter head, on which Bronn also
enlarges.—

With respect to Sexuality, I have often speculated on it, & have always
concluded that we are too ignorant to speculate— no physiologist can
conjecture why the two elements go to form the new being; & more than that why
nature strives at uniting the two elements from two individuals; what I am now
working at, viz Orchids, is admirable illustration of the law.— I
shd. certainly conclude that all Sexuality had descened from one
prototype. Do you not underrate the degree of
lowness of organization at which sexuality occurs, viz in Hydra: &
still lower in some of the one-celled free Confervæ which
``conjugate'', which good judges (Thwaites) believe is simplest form of true
sexual generation. But the whole case is a mystery.—

There is another point on which I have occasionally wished to say a few
words.— I believe you think with Asa Gray that I have not allowed enough for
the stream of variation having been guided by a Higher power.— I have had lately a good deal of correspondence on
this head. Herschel in his Phy. Geograph. has
sentence with respect to the Origin something to the effect that the higher
law of providential arrangement shd. always be stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the
course of each comet & planet.— The view that each variation
has been providentially arranged seems to me to make natural selection
entirely superfluous, & indeed takes whole case of appearance of new species out
of the range of science. But what makes me most object to Asa Gray's view, is the study
of the extreme variability of domestic animals.— He who does not
suppose that each variation in the Pigeon was providentially caused, by accumulating
which variations man made a Fantail, cannot, I think, logically argue that the tail of
the Woodpecker was formed by variations providentially ordained.—
It seems to me that variations in the domestic & wild conditions are due to
unknown causes & are without purpose & in so far accidental; &
that they become purposeful only when they are selected by man for his pleasure, or by
what we call natural selection in the struggle for life & under changing
conditions. I do not wish to say that God did not foresee everything which
would ensue; but here comes very nearly the same sort of wretched embroglio as between
free-will & preordained necessity.

I doubt whether I have made what I think clear; but certainly A. Gray's notion
of the course of variation having been led, like a stream of water by Gravity, seems to
me to smash the whole affair. It reminds me of a Spaniard whom I told I was trying to
make out how the Cordillera were formed; & he answered me that it was useless
for ``God made them''. It may be said that God foresaw how they would be
made. I wonder whether Herschel would say that you ought always to give the higher
providential Law, & declare that God had ordered all certain changes
of level that certain mountains should arise.— I must think that
such views of Asa Gray & Herschel merely show that the subject in their minds is
in Comte's theological stage of science.—

I have one other very distinct subject. William will, I apprehend, now certainly join
Mr. Atherley's Bank, & it would be of real importance to him to
get any good introduction in or near Southampton: can you aid
me? it would be a real service.—

Of course I do not want any answer to my quasi theological discussion: but only for you
to think of my notions, if you understand them.

I hope to Heaven your long & great labours on your new Edit. are
drawing to a close.

Dated by the endorsement. The first of August fell on a Thursday in 1861.

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f2 3223.f2

Emma Darwin's diary records that she and Henrietta Emma Darwin, accompanied by Hope
Elizabeth Wedgwood (the youngest daughter of Hensleigh and Fanny Mackintosh Wedgwood),
went on a tour of the Dartmoor area of Devon from 30 July until
5 August. Their tour included visits to Ashburton, Holne Chase, Lushleigh,
Whyddon Park, Chagford, Fingle Bridge, and Drewsteignton. According to Henrietta
Litchfield, this was the only tour Emma Darwin `ever took without the family in all her
married life.' (Emma Darwin 2: 178).

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f3 3223.f3

Frances Elizabeth Longfellow, wife of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
was burned to death in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after her dress caught
fire. She was the sister of Mary Mackintosh, the wife of Robert Mackintosh, who was the
brother of Fanny Mackintosh Wedgwood.

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f4 3223.f4

The address is that of CD's brother, Erasmus Alvey Darwin, where CD stayed when in
London.

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f5 3223.f5

Winkler trans. 1860. The Dutch palaeontologist Tiberius Cornelius Winkler
had sent a copy of the translation to Lyell to be forwarded to CD. See letter
from T. C. Winkler, 7 July 1861.

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f6 3223.f6

CD probably refers to George Maw's review of the third edition of Origin
(Maw 1861a). The points he refers to are addressed in Maw's review and in
Heinrich Georg Bronn's criticism of Origin in chapter 15 of Bronn
trans. 1860. See letters to George Maw, 13 July [1861], and to
H. C. Watson, [17 July 1861].

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f7 3223.f7

On CD's views on the origin and functional importance of sexual dimorphism in
evolution, see Ghiselin 1969 and Hodge 1985.

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f8 3223.f8

Thwaites 1847.

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f9 3223.f9

Asa Gray argued in A. Gray 1861a that natural selection and
natural theology were consistent if one conceived of the `stream' of variations, from
which nature selects, as having been `guided' or `designed'. For the correspondence
between Gray and CD on this point, see Correspondence vol. 8, letters
to Asa Gray, 3 July [1860], and 26 November [1860]. See also letters
to Asa Gray, 5 June [1861] and 21 July [1861].

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f10 3223.f10

In addition to the letters to Gray (see n. 9, above), see the letters to
J. F. W. Herschel, 23 May [1861], and to
F. J. Wedgwood, 11 July [1861].

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f11 3223.f11

Herschel 1861, p. 12 n.

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f12 3223.f12

Auguste Comte viewed the development of knowledge as having progressed through three
stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. CD had read an extensive review of the
first two volumes of Comte's Cours de philosophie positive
(Comte 1830--42) in 1838 (see Correspondence vol. 2, letter
to Charles Lyell, [14] September [1838]).

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f13 3223.f13

William Erasmus Darwin was preparing to become a partner in the Southampton and
Hampshire Bank.

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f14 3223.f14

The sixth edition of Lyell's Elements of geology did not in fact appear
until 1865. The delay was due to Lyell's eventual decision to publish the results of his
study of the antiquity of man as a separate volume (C. Lyell 1863)
rather than as a section within Elements.

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f15 3223.f15

The Lyells were staying in Folkestone, Kent. Among their party was George Bentham
(K. M. Lyell ed. 1881, 2: 347--8).